On the Web

Profile Information

Full Name:

Greg Dixson

Display Name:

Gregzinho

Job Title:

SEO Consultant

Company:

freelance

Type of Work:

Independent

Location:

London, United Kingdom

Favorite Thing About SEO:

I love to learn

Bio:

I came to SEO from Web Design after optimizing my own sites and those of clients. I now consult in all areas of Inbound Marketing, specialising in SEO, developing strategies for growth and improved visibilty. I enjoy to optimize and see the results.

Great WBF. The Link building part of SEO is for me always the part that feels like manipulating the system, even when it’s done in purely innocent ways. I’m a firm believer in this idealistic and no doubt future-proof way of ‘earning’ links. Until links as a ranking factor are demoted (not likely!), then of course SEOs will continue to ‘build’ links, yet the more diverse and natural the link profile the better.

By the way, it’s Açaí pronounced 'Ah-sah-eee' (the ç has an accent, so pronounced as ’s’) - I only know this because of time spent in Brazil, where you can get Açaí berries, pulp, smoothies, ice cream, everything! Recommended ;-)

Informative post, thanks. Could you please shed some light on why HTTPS requires relative URL's? As with your post, I've seen this mentioned a few times, yet without explanation. I even asked in last weeks #SEOchat and someone replied "Imagine having a 5K page site with ab links, you change domains, imagine work needed."

So am I to assume this is just for "convenience" , so mass redirects aren't required? or is there a specific reason for using relative URLs? - I was always under the impression that 'absolute' URL's were better for SEO, so this seems like a backwards step. As I said, I've seen this mentioned a few times recently, and Google's webmaster info for migrations says "Use protocol relative URLs" (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/60735... ) Yet HTTP to HTTPS with absolute URL's is totally possible.. case in point Yoast.com who moved and still use absolute URL's https://yoast.com/move-website-https-ssl/ AND advise absolute URL's for SEO - https://yoast.com/relative-urls-issues/

Great to see something relevant to so many covered in such detail in a WBF. Something like this is really useful to refer back to with clients for blogging basics and the reason the blog exists. Thanks also for reiterating the blog on subdomain issue... I still see this far too often out there.

Interesting that a penalty can follow a site around even when starting afresh. I haven't done much in the way of penalty recovery, but I guess the best advice would be to change up the content and code as much as possible, so the site is as different and "new" as possible.

On the subject of code, unlikely to happen, but with this in mind, I wonder if the same Wordpress Theme was used on many sites with penalties, if it was possible that the Theme could get a bad name in Google, and consequent 'innocent' sites using the Theme could also be penalised. Maybe a mass test for Rand's IMEC project!

Great stuff Rand, and thanks for reminding people of the vast amount of areas SEO's cover. Good points for people to check though. On a client’s site we have successfully implemented 1, 2, and 3. of your tips with good results...

1. successfully ranked in top positions for a number of book titles in a review section. We also had rich snippet data with star ratings appearing in the SERPS. Looking to switch over to an improved plugin, but to keep that all important /review/ in the URL structure, which must contribute to click-throughs.

2. site architecture, and link structure improved. We were also seeing a massive number of crawl errors in Moz Analytics due to Buddypress. This was corrected and Google was a lot happier!

3. We improved Site speed & performance. The site was buckling under the weight of numerous plugins and bloated code and in the red in Google Page Speed Insights.

All of the above definitely improved rankings across the board and were worthwhile in implementing (and all with no new content!)

Interesting. I’ve recently been doing just this for a client’s Facebook page. In the personal development / wellness space there's all these Facebook pages constantly sharing inspirational quotes like crazy!..so we’ve joined in and are currently using Quozio.com, which Lena mentioned. In the future we’ll no doubt brand these up so as they get shared we’re getting our name out there.

I’d definitely recommend the same to anyone who’s light on content as this really is a quick win :)

I’ll have to see info infographics and memes might work as well too. Thanks Lena!

As Derek Halpern said in a CreativeLive class a while back "Infographics are the scourge of the Internet!"

There's a small percentage which are well executed, but there's so many out there which are poorly designed - thus defeating their purpose. I would also add that past the initial 'visual hit' people rarely absorb all of the info of the ..erm.. infographics! .. and for people's limited attention span on the Web, it's probably not the optimum method to convey information (I'd love to see some eye-tracking on this and see the results).

Personally I feel like I engage more with high value 'visual assets' within posts and get more from them over infographics. I feel the key difference is visual assets are illustrating a point made in the written text - to clarify and sometimes illustrate data, show examples, etc. whereas infographics bundle the text in with the graphics and "try" to represent that visually - all in one scroll-forever image (which depending on the subject and/or design just doesn't work well).

I think the key takeaway here is give value - even with your graphics. Think about the best way to communicate information visually and have it resonate with your audience. And if you are creating an infographic make sure it's in the percentage of well executed ones out there, not just link/share bait.

A very entertaining WBF - I had no idea Danny Sullivan was so funny! "Later we'll do potatoes!.." literally made me laugh out loud! I would also like to see the state of that white board after another 11 mins of passionate search evolution scribbling. Great stuff!

Seriously though, this was a good overview of Search over the years easy to understand for all. Would've been great to hear more speculation about Search 6.0.. and beyond! Certainly voice-search gives the user a more direct and 'natural' closer to their intent and matched to their inner thoughts. In recent years people have adjusted their behaviour and language to working with computers, and we frequently use computer abbreviated language to find what we want e.g. "plumber new york", but as technology and search both evolve, the 'original thought' of "I need to know ______ " and the information that gets served-up, become more closely matched - and possibly increasingly served 'at source' and not directing us to Web pages.

In the future when the Web is like a cave drawing to our ancestors, Search or whatever it's called then will surely be thinking, accessing, and knowing information at the speed of thought itself, and just as we're not now searching with Alta-vista, etc. the future may not necessarily be searching with Google.

Love the flywheel analogy. Certainly gaining that initial momentum can be tough, but over time the sum of the effort put in starts to be repaid... often many times over.

P.S. the thumbs-up click isn't registering for me. It's working for clicks on the comments, but not for the post. Not sure if others having the same issue? - This post deserves more than 20-something thumbs-up ;-)

Firstly congrats on the rebrand, the new site looks great! Obviously a lot of hard work and carefully orchestrated plans coming to fruition.

I've struggled with this SEO branding issue myself. As a freelancer should a be an SEO Consultant? Online Marketer? Web Strategist? Inbound person?!! ...and your recent Whiteboard Friday 'Why We Can't Just Be SEO's Anymore' was like my inner turmoil voiced.

That said, I can't help but wonder if you've prematurely jumped ship just as SEO is getting known and the good info that yourselves and others promote is starting to trickle (albeit slowly) down to the masses. I've certainly noticed a little more positive talk from non-SEO's in recent months. However I admit it's a struggle and in many ways an uphill battle.

I just hope SEO doesn't get diluted inside Moz.com. In the past year or so of my own learning SEOmoz has been a must-have resource, and in particular some of the more technical and complex questions I've had I knew I could find information on SEOmoz.

That said you're the trail blazers and if anyone can show us the way it's you guys. I look forward to seeing how the new Moz.com, and the industry as whole evolves.

Thanks Rand for another great WBF. These look like pain points that we can all relate to! By streamlining the user experience we can maximise user interaction and conversions. This can be as involved as UX design & development, or as simple as a well-crafted email or blog post... so something we can all start practicing from today.p.s. The addition of the board image is a great idea!! Hope that continues... I look forward to collecting a whiteboard image library for quick reference :)